I made it! Today is 37 weeks, 2 days. Full term. Since I last posted, there’s been a few noteworthy happenings…

I finished work! And promptly had a freakout. Apparently I placed more emphasis on my identity as defined by my career than I realised! It’s a strange concept to think of myself as a stay at home mum and although it’s not my long term plan, it’s where I’ll be for at least 12 months. Strange.

We went to see the beautiful Martha Wainwright. It was tough to drag myself there. I was exhausted and in a lot of pelvic/pubic pain and not looking forward to the reality of standing room only. It was only when Ducks said she wouldn’t go if I didn’t that I decided to pull myself out of the rut. And I’m so glad I did! Somehow Ducks and I managed to sweet talk the security guys and we found ourselves happily seated, with our friends, in the VIP section of the venue – we had a perfect view and enjoyed a gorgeous night in total comfort. It was awesome.

We took ourselves on a romantic beachside getaway…at least, that was the plan. The reality was that I was heavily pregnant, super teary and somewhat in premature mourning for the loss of ‘just Ducks and I.’ All I wanted was to be at home. Ducks was completely exhausted and wanted the same. Nonetheless, we’d paid $350 for 2 nights accom and couldn’t abide losing our money. It took us all day to actually get in the car and drive there and about 3 hours after arriving to decide that we’d be hotfooting it home first thing in the morning. $350 wasn’t worth the misery. So we came home and watched DVDs for 2 days – it was perfect!

I had cuddles with McBean and lunch with his lovely parents on Thursday. He’s beautiful and really helped me get super excited again about the impending arrival of little Squeak. (The mourning period really spooked me!)

On Friday at my regular midwife check up we ended up in a spiral of panic and possibility. I had slightly raised blood pressure (raised but NOT high) and high end of normal protein in my urine. Eek! Preeclampsia alert! Before I knew it, I was in the hospital having fetal monitoring and 1/2 hourly blood pressure checks and more blood taken than you can imagine. It all felt like serious overkill and instinctively, I knew I was fine. That’s not to say that the scary possibilities of induction and caesarian weren’t taunting us both. 6 hours later, we’d missed Duck’s Nanna’s 90th birthday party and all results came back fine. For some reason however, the Dr’s weren’t convinced so required a 24 hour pee collection (that’s right – every pee for 24 hours in a bottle!) and a complete retest and monitoring on Monday. I spent the weekend freaking out but knowing intuitively that I was fine and feeling annoyed at myself for allowing myself to get sucked into a potential web of interventions. Still, the fact that my hands and face were periodically puffy didn’t help our panic tendencies. Nonetheless, we trekked back to the hospital yesterday with my bottle full of pee ( I fondly refer to it as ‘my dignity in a bottle’) and I re-sat all the tests and monitoring. The results: I’m absolutely normal! The baby is perfect and I’m clear to birth in the birth centre! And I’m GBS negative which is awesome ‘cos the decision to have the abx during labour was really challenging me.

So all is looking up! I’m feeling pretty positive and looking forward to the experience of labour. I’ve been having lots and lots of cramping and a fair amount of BH contrax too. I’ve been swinging the pendulum between total surity that Squeak will arrive in a couple of days, to him being a big tease and arriving just in time for xmas. Either scenario is possible. All I know for sure is that Tiff and I are officially racing!

I don’t love this pic but I’m too tired and lazy to take another right now…

37 weeks!

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6 responses to “Adventures at full term”

OMG! You seemed so calm and well when we saw you Thursday, even if I was meanly telling you bad stuff! Sorry ’bout that. Sleep deprivation is bad for tact.
I’m so glad that all was good in the end, and that you seemed to manage to keep it all in perspective – well done! Pity you had to miss the birthday party though…
I;m gunning for you to win the race – sorry Tiff! I can’t wait until I can cuddle squeak – and he and McBean can hang out!

I think your belly shot is awesome!! I am so happy for you that you are GBS negative…me too! It’s a nice feeling….one less thing to worry about you know? I am so excited for you and can’t wait to *meet* little Squeak! And, Karli and I just CANNOT get over how smart you are! We had no idea that anyone would guess his name. It’s just not a common name in the US or Canada….is it common in Australia? I feel it’s only fair that I know yours now 😉 Ha ha!!! Just…in fairness of course 😉

I will be checking up on you often and hoping all goes SO SO smoothly for you 🙂